


Hamilsin

by Feavel



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Gen, Probably Slow to Update, eventual heavy-handed cursing, it'll probably be everywhere, like every other word, slow start, we'll see--sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 07:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5905075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feavel/pseuds/Feavel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>JPR Television is a failing company, and CEO Steven is desperate for any ideas--literally anything--to keep its channel afloat. One of Steven's employees happens to have a Tumblr. This employee--Mason--happens to follow a Hamilask blog. Stupid ideas are had, stupid ideas are brought to fruition. We'll see how this goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hamilsin

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this took me so long! I'm still not enamored with how it turned out, but I can't think of any way to fix it, so--*shrugs*  
> More will come soon, and I apologize in advance if I write you doing/saying/thinking something you would never do/say/think. I don't know any of you very well at all; I'm just going off the stuff you reblog and how you interact with your followers.  
> Enough with the apologies--I need to let you read the damn thing before I apologize for it!

Mason sits on the edge of his seat at the debriefing this morning, where he's usually slumped over standard-issue company coffee in a standard-issue company mug. This morning isn't a usual morning, though; far from it. Intern Mason, as his coworkers call him, has been employed at the failing JPR Television for all of one month, and today's the day he's possibly overstepping his boundaries by suggesting an idea for a show to "save the station," to quote his boss, Steven. To be fair, Mason reminds himself, Steven didn't say  _who_ had to come up with a new show, just that it had to happen, so that the channel the company runs doesn't disappear from TV.

Mason has no more time to fret about whether or not he'll get in trouble or be laughed out of the room (though that doesn't stop him from doing it): Steven himself strides into the conference room, saying, "Okay, people, give me something good!" No one speaks up; they're all looking bashfully at their coffee mugs or at each other or at the wall, all too embarrassed to meet Steven's eye.  _Please, someone, go first,_ Mason silently pleads. He wills someone--anyone--to present an idea before he does. He knows his is going to sound stupid. He knows his is probably legally questionable.

After what seems like an eon, Steven prompts, "No one? Guys, I gave you a month. Are you telling me that not one of you thought of a single idea for a TV show in a month?"

Even Mason's lungs tremble as he takes a deep breath. Before he even has a chance to speak, Steven pounces. "Mason! Tell me you have something, kid." Mason jumps. "Well, um, I do have something--"

"So tell us! Stand up, why don'tcha, so we can hear you." Mason quietly obliges, rising on leaden legs and wondering how standing up will make him more audible. "Well, um," he starts again. "my idea's more of a last-resort kind of thing, I think--"

"We're at the last-resort point, Mason, it's okay."

"Okay, um, I should probably start with a little background information.." At the expectant looks on his coworkers' faces, Mason explains how the idea came to him.

 

The previous night after work, Mason had checked his Tumblr for anything new or interesting, as he always did before he went to bed (he has to take a detour to explain what Tumblr is). The first thing on his dashboard was one of the longest posts he'd ever seen, and it looked like only two people were reblogging it--both of them ask blogs. He decided to investigate, since to his knowledge, ask blogs waited around for people to ask them questions, then respond, and usually it was just a one-and-done kind of thing, not a co-op novel. He clicked on one of the URLs and into the rabbit-hole he fell. An enormous rabbit-hole it was, too; full of people obsessed with the musical  _Hamilton_. Obsessed with it to the point of setting up blogs and pretending to be its characters (and those characters' real-life children, parents, siblings, friends, pets, inanimate possessions...). Mason enjoyed  _Hamilton_ , but not  _that_ much. Anyway, as he explored both the in- and out-of-character interactions among the huge community that had dubbed itself Hamilask, he found himself becoming more and more impressed with their chemistry and wondering what would happen if they met in real life. Would they be this nice to each other without a screen and the Atlantic Ocean separating them all? What would happen if they were all just dropped in a huge house together, a la  _Big Brother_ , and left to run wild? Would it be as chaotic as their roleplays, with someone getting injured or dying every ten minutes? Then it hit him:  _a la Big Brother_. What if JPR made a Hamilask-style Big Brother? Of course, immediately after that  _what if_ entered Mason's head, it was followed by a thousand others, each less helpful than the last. What if they didn't get along? What if they hated each other? A majority of them were minors; was sticking them all in a house together with adults who weren't related to them legal? Was it a good idea, legal or no?

Mason sighed. He'd tell Steven about it, he decided, but only if no one had any better ideas.

 

"So," Mason says resignedly, "here I am. Telling you about my legally questionable idea for a show that no one will even watch." Someone to his right chuckles, "Great sell, kid." He blushes crimson and sits back down, looking nervously at Steven for his reaction. His boss' face is stony; Steven looks to be deep in thought.

"That sounds great!"

The statement--and the change in Steven's demeanor--comes so abruptly that Mason actually jumps. "What?"

"I said it sounds great! I mean, we've got nothing to lose, right? And if they get along as well as you say they do..." Steven gives an exaggerated shrug. "What's not to love?"

Mason peers closely at Steven. He didn't expect his pitch to go through. "Did you not hear me say that it's probably illegal? The age range is crazy. We'd be putting kids as young as fourteen in the same house as young adults, with no supervision from their parents or guardians."

Steven waves a hand dismissively. "We'll hire bodyguards or something."

Mason doesn't know why he's fighting so hard against an idea that was his in the first place, but he keeps doing it anyway.

"Okay...they're all R-rating-level foulmouthed; do we have the money to blur all the cursing? Or even to bleep it? And how are we gonna contact them all?"

This back-and-forth of Mason protesting and Steven waving him away goes on for at least another ten minutes, before Mason finally waves a white flag. "You want me to contact them with our quote-unquote, 'TV magic'?"

Steven grins. "Exactly! No time to waste,  _mi padre_!"

Mason doesn't bother pointing out that  _padre_ means  _father_ and not  _friend._

 

~~~

 

It's stupid late. So stupid late, Cali doesn't even know why she's still awake. All she knows is that she is so bored at four o'clock on a Friday night (Saturday morning? Whatever) that she is checking her e-mail. Voluntarily. Wading through endless college advertisements, deleting them with vicious swipes, as if they're jungle vines she's slashing out of her way with a machete. Then her fingertip touches down on an e-mail that isn't from Washburn or Bryn Mawr. It opens in response to her touch, and she sees that it isn't from her band director or Facebook, either. It's some TV company she doesn't even recognize (she only knows it's a TV company because its name ends in Television).

Cali hovers her thumb over the trash can icon, then figures,  _What the hell, it's already open_.

As her eyes dart across her phone screen, they narrow and her brow furrows and her mouth becomes a thin, skeptical line. There's no way that the subject of the e-mail exists-, first of all--does anyone even watch that kind of show anymore, outside of hotel rooms in the middle of nowhere? And what the hell would this probably-fake TV company want with a teenage girl in Suburbia, the Middle of Nowhere, USA for this probably-fake TV show? Come on. An e-mail tailored this specifically to the way Cali spends her free time has  _got_ to be a prank. And from someone she knows well, too; she almost never talks about the Tumblr blog to which this pertains. She's pretty sure there's only one person she knows in real life who knows that she makes a hobby out of pretending to be the Marquis de Lafayette. Checking the address from which the e-mail was sent, Cali doesn't recognize her friend's Gmail. The address looks real, actually. She still doubts its legitimacy, and she doesn't see the words 'no reply' anywhere in it, so just for fun, she sends an e-mail in response with her RSVP of "I'll be there."

To this day, she still can't decide whether or not that was a mistake.

**Author's Note:**

> So, that was interesting. How about those wannabe cliffhanger endings?  
> I'm planning on dividing each episode in half--half of it'll be in the "real world," the behind-the-scenes world occupied by Mason, Steven, and Co., and the other half will be in the Hamilhouse, where the rest of us are.  
> Constructive criticism would be very much appreciated!


End file.
